Home      Login

Abstract: 

Domestic violence is often prosecuted using laws to redress criminal conduct such as assault, kidnapping, or homicide. But these laws obscure the defi ning characteristics of battering: the problem of time and the paradigm of injury. For example, current laws do not account for the continuing nature of the acts. Nor do they account for the full range of potential harm. Rather, battering should be criminalized as a “course of conduct,” which accounts for its ongoing, patterned nature. The author argues that new laws are needed to account for the truths about battering that are overlooked by our current legal framework.

Keywords: 

Affiliations:  1: DePaul University College of Law.